Did I see her ravaged face, with the black skin peeling back from the bone, a dead, dry thing in dusty rags, standing in a grotto of motionless, jagged water? Did I hear her pitiful question, in the sudden silence?

I don't know; I don't know. I'm afraid to know. But I do know that I answered her, shrieking as if the wind still raged.

Olympias threaded he r way through the rocks, miraculously. Was that the doing of the lost one? Because I gave her the right answer?

I don't know. And today, as I work in the autumnal sun, chipping rust from my boat, I ply the iron in a frenzy, like a man chipping rust from his own soul.

I think this: there are worse fates than mine, even if I never become more than a fat old drunk who writes guidebooks.